Timothy Spangler: EU Nobel stirs critics

Dec. 14, 2012

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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People walk with torches to protest against the awarding to the Peace Prize to the EU, in Oslo, Norway, Sunday Dec. 9, 2012. The Nobel Peace Prize Committee awarded the prize to the European Union for its efforts to promote peace and democracy in Europe. YVES LOGGHE, ASSOCIATED PRESS

People walk with torches to protest against the awarding to the Peace Prize to the EU, in Oslo, Norway, Sunday Dec. 9, 2012. The Nobel Peace Prize Committee awarded the prize to the European Union for its efforts to promote peace and democracy in Europe. YVES LOGGHE, ASSOCIATED PRESS

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize each year is a curious affair. Sometimes the announcement incites bemusement, other times anger and dissent, and on rare occasions general consensus.

This year's recipient, the European Union, has proven to be a controversial one. At a ceremony last week in Oslo, the capital of Norway, representatives of the Brussels bureaucracy, together with designated guests from member states, accepted the award for the EU's services in bringing peace to the word. The Nobel committee recognized the efforts of the EU over five decades to promote democracy and human rights among nations that had previously fought bitter wars against each other.

Interestingly, although apparently worthy of international recognition and plaudits, the EU is not particularly popular with actual Norwegian voters.

Twice, Norway has voted to stay out of the EU, preferring instead an arms-length relationship that ensures Norwegians enjoy all the economic benefits, without sacrificing its own sovereignty when it comes to other areas, such as, international peacekeeping efforts.

There was no doubt that several "Eurocrats" attending the ceremony were busy contemplating how the prestige of winning a Nobel Prize could be turned into more money, more power and more patronage for Brussels.

One recommendation already making the rounds, courtesy of the EU's foreign affairs department, is that the EU should form yet another "institute." Pithily titled the European Institute of Peace, this new organization would spread the word about the benefits of conflict resolution. The Nobel Peace Prize comes with a $1 million cash prize, which could be used to jump-start new projects such as this. Many EU champions feel that the Nobel Prize brings with it an obligation to expand European peacemaking efforts. Current estimates for an Institute of Peace envision a budget of over $3 million a year and a staff of a dozen or more.

Such an institute, however, would follow in the well-trod footsteps of both the United States and the United Nations. The U.S. Institute of Peace has been up and running for almost 30 years and has a budget of over $40 million. Critics have pointed out the EU's copycat institute may be duplicative and unnecessary.

Unfortunately, protests in Oslo the day before the award was presented demonstrated that anti-EU sentiment is still intense, at least in some quarters. Even former Nobel Peace Prize winners such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa have come out against the EU as a worthy recipient.

The bloody war in Bosnia during the 1990s, which raged as the EU stood idly by, is just one example of Brussels' inadequacy on the international stage. The economic collapses that have engulfed the continent in recent years are threatening the continued viability of the euro, the single currency at the heart of EU consolidation, revealing significant gaps in the EU's effectiveness.

Champions of European integration, however, stress that the EU will ultimately emerge even stronger from the economic crisis. This is perhaps what most concerns its critics. No matter what the challenges and shortcomings facing the EU, the answer that comes back from Brussels always appears to be "more integration, more harmonization."

The backlash against the EU remains strongest in Britain. Prime Minister David Cameron is working hard to stake out a position for his government addressing the anti-European sentiment building up inside and outside his party, while at the same time reassuring others that the future of Britain is within Europe.

Cameron is pushing for significant reforms in how decisions are made and how money is spent within the Brussels bureaucracy, while angry voices are condemning the European experiment as an anti-democratic failure that undermines Britain's own political institutions and its long history of liberty and civil rights.

An arms-length relationship with the EU, such as Norway enjoys, is an appealing option to many of these disgruntled Britons.

On the other side of the Atlantic, a number of patriotic Americans might point out that the role of the NATO alliance, and the extended commitment of U.S. troops to Europe for many years after the end of World War II, had much more to do with bringing peace and stability to a war-torn continent than a common agricultural policy or uniform regulations on arcane topics like the acceptable curvature of a banana.

The Nobel Peace Prize has always been more a means to make political statements than a rigorous assessment of the actual contributions made towards limiting the casualties of war and violence.

Perhaps the EU will produce a better legacy from its Nobel win. Otherwise, the prize itself risks a further decline in both its prestige and its effectiveness in promoting the value of peace to the world.

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